Diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) neared agreement on a harsh rebuke of Iran for blocking a UN probe of its suspect nuclear activities, despite lobbying by Tehran to tone down the reprimand.
Delegates representing some of the 35 nations at the IAEA board of governors' meeting said on Tuesday that the newest draft, written by Germany, France and Britain, would likely be formally accepted in the next day or two.
Even though the draft does not directly threaten sanctions, its tough wording amounts to substantial pressure on Iran to clear up aspects of what was a covert nuclear program for nearly 20 years until it was discovered two years ago.
Compared to an earlier version, the new draft tones down demands on Iran to abort plans to build a heavy-water reactor and slightly modifies language taking Tehran to task for hampering the IAEA probe.
But the overall wording remains tough.
One key phrase "deplored" Iran's spotty record on cooperating with the agency -- strong wording in diplomatic language. Other omissions by Iran are noted with "concern," or "serious concern."
no trigger
The draft contains no deadline or "trigger mechanism" as sought by the US and its allies that could set into motion possible sanctions if Iran continued its foot-dragging past a certain date.
Still, in an apparent nod to the US, Canada, Australia and other nations favoring action instead of words, the draft contrasts the "passage of time" -- a year since the IAEA probe began -- with the still-blurry contours of Iran's nuclear program.
A diplomat -- speaking like all delegates on condition of anonymity -- said that Washington recognized it could not now get majority board support for a direct or implicit threat of UN sanctions.
Instead, the diplomat said, the US was waiting for new revelations about Iran's nuclear program to surface at the next board meeting in September that will increase sentiment to find the country guilty of contravening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. That could result in referral to the UN Security Council, which could then impose sanctions.
The results of analysis of enriched uranium traces found on military sites in Iran and now being evaluated by the agency could provide the trigger in September, the diplomat said, adding it could support suspicions that Tehran enriched uranium domestically.
Iran, which denies working on enrichment beyond the experimental stage, says minute finds of enriched uranium -- which include minute amounts at weapons-grade levels -- within the country were not domestically produced but inadvertently imported in purchases through the nuclear black market.
The other main agency concern is ambiguous, missing or withheld information on the scope of Iran's centrifuge program, used to enrich uranium.
Under international pressure, Iran has suspended uranium enrichment and stopped building centrifuges. It has also allowed IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities without notice. But recent revelations have raised new suspicions.
magnets
An IAEA report, written by agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, says Iran inquired about buying thousands of magnets for centrifuges on the black market -- casting doubt on Iranian assertions that its P-2 centrifuge program was purely experimental and not aimed for full uranium enrichment.
In desperate efforts to sway the meeting, the Iranian delegation met privately with ElBaradei on Tuesday and lobbied with the chief delegates of the three European nations who wrote the draft, a diplomat close to the agency said.
Publicly, Tehran protested its innocence.
"We have no plans to produce weapons and all of our activities are for peaceful purposes and nothing is wrong," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on Tuesday in Istanbul.
But in Vienna, Kenneth Brill, the chief US delegate to the IAEA, said Washington remained convinced that Iran was "trying to hide ... a weapons program."
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS